Tutoring
For one of my reading classes (Assessment & Treatment of Reading Difficulties) I needed to do a practicum – 15 hours of tutoring a student with reading difficulties. I, of course, chose the student in my class who struggles the most. He is a 2nd grade student and struggles with school in general. His background – well, his story breaks my heart. The one thing that stands out about him is that he wants to show off how great he is – doesn’t sound like a blessing, but a little praise can go along way!! The first night, I worked with him, I gave him a reading interest inventory. A little piece of me cried when he said he owned ZERO books. I’ve been meeting with him for the past few weeks. While he seems to enjoy coming – he told me yesterday that his two favorite things were riding home in my car (duh!) and playing on the computer. Beyond that, he said there was nothing else he liked about staying after school with me. After some reflection, I pulled out the reading inventory – he had an interest in stories about animals and non-fiction. Tomorrow we’ll try to pull out the non-fiction books to see if we can get him interested and engaged in reading, rather than ‘just another thing this woman makes me do before she lets me ride home in her rock star car with a sun roof!’
